1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a power converter that includes a smoothing capacitor and a discharge resistor parallelly connected to the smoothing capacitor.
2. Related Art
As disclosed in a patent document JP-A-2012-039715, for example, a power converter (three-phase inverter) of a well-known type includes a smoothing capacitor and a discharge resistor for discharging electric charges accumulated in the smoothing capacitor. The smoothing capacitor has a function of smoothing the direct-current voltage applied by a direct-current power source to the switching elements that configure the power converter.
The electric charge accumulated in the smoothing capacitor can be discharged by electrically disconnecting the smoothing capacitor from the direct-current power source to form a closed circuit including the smoothing capacitor and the discharge resistor. In this case, the discharge resistor generates heat with the discharging of the electric charges. If the discharge resistor that generates heat is not appropriately cooled, the reliability of the power converter is likely to be impaired.